Oct 16, 2014

If you follow the tech industry, you are probably aware that Google has just launched the highly anticipated Nexus 9 tablet.

The slate was unveiled alongside the Nexus 6 smartphone and Android 5.0 Lollipop, but albeit this being quite the roll-out, Google refrained from making the announcement during a big-fancy event, supposedly because it still has some tweaking to do on Android 5.0.

The Nexus 9 shown in real-life

So the Nexus 9 got launched by virtue of a pretty bland blog post on the search giant’s official layer. We got to see a few press renders of the device, but we all know the real-life product could turn out to look quite different. We have to recognize we are quite curios to see what the new tablet actually looks like and we can wager so are you. Well, the folks over at Tinthe were luckier than most of us, because they already managed to get their hands on two Nexus 9 models, one in white and the other one in black. Judging by the images, the Nexus 9 is quite sleek, having a pretty anorexic profile that is actually comparable with the iPad Air (we don’t know about the upcoming iPad Air 2). Visible in the photographs is the metal frame and matte plastic back cover bringing Nexus 5 vibes. You can also take a look at the Nexus’ origami keyboard folio which can be folded into two different angles and see how it interacts with the tablet per-se.

Nexus 9 spec round-up

The Nexus 9 paves two roads – for starters, it is the first Nexus device to take advantage of a 64-bit processor; secondly, is the first tab to arrive with Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. The tablet has an 8.9-inch display which is not too big or too small, so it can be used for productive activities and leisure related ones too. It boasts 2047 x 1536 pixel resolution and offers an atypical 4:3 aspect ratio. The product utilizes an NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor and is actually the third tablet to be launched with this chip platform inside (after the Xiaomi MiPad and NVIDIA Shield Tablet).

Nexus 9 makes use of HTC’s own BoomSound speaker technology and should be able to run up to 9 hours on a single charge. In the wake of the Nexus 9 launch, Apple is preparing to unveil its next-gen iPad Air in a few hours and it will be interesting to see how the two models stack up against each other. Images gallery below, click for larger image.